


Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Sweetsourwolf



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, season 5 rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 23:06:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11473563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweetsourwolf/pseuds/Sweetsourwolf
Summary: His eyes are as pale as a frozen river and he has dark unruly hair. After the Lannisters it is a nice change and Sansa might even find him handsome if it wasn’t for the sickening ‘flayed man’ sigil that he wore on his cloak.Nevertheless, she returns his smile as the Lady she is brought up to be.The rewrite of season 5 that I've always wanted to happen. Ramsay/Sansa





	Nothing Gold Can Stay

_"A mermaid found a swimming lad,_

_picked him up for her own,_

_pressed her body to his body,_

_laughed; and plunging down forgot in cruel happiness_

_that even lovers drown._

_\- W.B. Yeats_

 

 

She expects someone entirely different. Sansa gives him a polite greeting and he reciprocates by kissing her hand. He isn’t as scary looking as she had imagined him to be, but as she has previously experienced; looks can be deceiving.

His eyes are as pale as a frozen river and he has dark unruly hair. After the Lannisters it is a nice change and Sansa might even find him handsome if it wasn’t for the sickening ‘flayed man’ sigil that he wore on his cloak.

Nevertheless, she returns his smile as the Lady she is brought up to be.

She holds her head up high as she is led to her chambers. Dully noting pink bodies hanging out of the corner of her eye. It looks nothing like Winterfell anymore, but it is still her home.

She doesn’t cry.

 _I can be strong and brave, like Robb,_ she thinks.

 

\---

 

When it is time for dinner, Roose Bolton and his wife Walda, are already waiting for them at the table. Ramsay personally escorts her to the dining hall, where Sansa and her family used to have their feasts.

But that is all in the past now.

Ramsay pulls out a chair for her and she mutters a polite ‘thank you’ while sitting down. He proposes at toast to their wedding next, and Sansa makes sure to stare at him in admiration as she drinks her wine.

She finds comfort in the taste.

When she places her cup back on the table her fingers brush the oak of the dining table, and for just a moment, it’s as if she’s never left.

When Roose Bolton shares the news of him and Lady Walda expecting a child, she can see something in Ramsay change. She notes that he can’t hide his true feelings that well, unlike her.

When inside she revels at this, she still places her hand onto his and has to push down the feeling of nausea. Her fingers entangle in between his, and she can feel his eyes rest upon her as she turns to his father.

“Congratulations, I’m very happy for both of you.”

She imagines the man opposite of her dead and even manages a genuine smile.

That day she learns that she’s a much better liar than Ramsay Bolton.

 

\---

 

Myranda fills her bath tub for her. She tells her horrible stories about Ramsay and his former _girls_. And it is almost amusing to Sansa that she would think that that would be enough to scare her.

Not this time. Not in this place.

Men who enjoy pain, causing pain. Men who enjoy killing. It doesn’t matter. They’re all pliable, with the right leverage. Silly boys. The Hound. Littlefinger. And now Ramsay Bolton.

Every one of them is just a pawn in your hand, if only you can figure out what they want.

Littlefinger taught her that. King’s Landing taught her that. Margaery taught her that. Even the Queen Regent in some aspects.

“I appreciate your concern, Myranda,” Sansa says sweetly.

At that moment the door opens and her betrothed strolls in. “I’d like to have a word with Lady Sansa. Alone.”

Myranda doesn’t move, instead she scowls, tightening her grip on the towel in her hand. “She’s to have a bath, my Lord.”

“I don’t care, leave us,” he says, his voice dangerously close to a whisper.

“It’s alright. You can go,” Sansa intervenes quickly.

The young woman straightens her back and bows her head, before throwing the towel a bit too harshly on the bed and storming out of the chamber.

Ramsay’s eyes are squinted as he watches her close the door behind her. “She’s special,” Sansa remarks, somewhere between sarcasm and serious.

“Yes, she is,” Ramsay replies dry and seemingly annoyed.

“She’s in love with you,” Sansa states as a matter of fact then. They must take her for a fool if they think she wouldn’t notice.

“Don’t worry, my Lady. I’m to marry _you_ , not her.”

“I’m _not_ worried.”

She dares to smirk and he looks at her like she’s everything he’s ever wanted.

_Easy enough._

“Please, I insist on helping you bathe.”

“If it pleases you, my Lord.”

Sansa unlaces her dress, letting it fall to the floor. Next she removes her underdress, all the while Ramsay keeps watching. She doesn’t care all that much. She’s been beaten and disrobed in front of various Lords and Lady’s at Kings Landing, and she’s never been nervous undressing in front her handmaidens as a young girl.

It’s just flesh, she thinks. Skin and bones. He’ll have to see her eventually. She’d rather get used to it now.

She knows she’s pretty, enough people have told her this, in particular men. Her body is lean and fair like marble.

Her looks are just as deceitful as his.

Sansa lets her hair fall free around her slim shoulders, like a beacon of liquid fire around her head. And Ramsay looks desperate to have her.

She steps out of her shoes before lowering her feet into the tub. She sits down, letting the steaming water almost come up to her shoulders.

Ramsay is already at her side with a clean cloth, his eyes roaming shamelessly over her as he dips it into the water, and drags it gently across her skin.

Sansa closes her eyes, reveling in the warmth of the bath and the soft strokes of the washing cloth against her back.

She tries not to jump when she feels his touch at her neck as he carefully tucks her hair, back out of the way.

“I’m looking forward to our wedding night, my lady. How do you feel about that?”

His whisper sends a chill up her spine, and his words make her skin crawl.

“As do I, my Lord,” she answers like she knows she’s supposed to.

Sansa turns to look at him and angles her head back lightly. Ramsay touches her face, graces her lips, like he’s trying to memorize their shape and softness.

Down her neck he goes next, pressing on her collarbones just above her breasts. It gets harder to breathe the more he touches her. And not where she expects him to and that makes him all the more unpredictable.

Then he suddenly stops, taking his hands entirely off of her.

“I’ll leave you to yourself now,” he says softly as he hands her the washing cloth.

When he’s gone, Sansa lets out a few shaky breaths.

She makes sure to thoroughly scrub at the places he has touched her, until the skin turns red and becomes sensitive.

Like it’s been flayed.

 

\---

 

She sows herself a new dress; black heavy fabric, that shows off just a sliver of her cleavage with two thick leather bands crossed over her chest like the cross on the Bolton sigil. With a flayed man on the part where the cross meets just above her chest.

Even though she’s covered up for the most part, it’s still daring and risqué in an alluring kind of way.

Just a hint of darkness.

It’s her very own way of seduction.

And indeed, both Ramsay and Roose Bolton give her an approving look as she walks by them on the courtyard.

 

\---

 

Myranda even comments on her dress, and Sansa listens thoughtfully to every word she says. Not because it’s particularly interesting, but because behind her façade she might be just as dangerous as Ramsay is.

Her words speak of nothing but awe and admiration for Sansa’s skills, but deep down Sansa knows they’re just a cover up for the bile that rises in the other woman’s throat.

“I’d like to show you something, my Lady,” Myranda says as she leads her to the kennels. Sansa hears the hounds barking and her stomach turns to knots.

“It’s down there, oh, you’re going to love it,” Myranda tells her, and her voice rises a pitch, barely able to hide her excitement.

Sansa stares the woman down, her expression that of boredom.

“If you think I will be led anywhere by _you_ , you must be mistaken. I highly doubt that _my dear Lord husband_ would want me to enter the kennels and ruin my new dress.”

Myranda doesn’t miss the glint in Sansa’s eyes as she glances down at the kennel master’s daughter’s own dress, smudged and torn at the bottom.

“Fine, my Lady,” Myranda’s face is set in a smile, but Sansa wouldn’t call it pretty. Something resembling more of a grimace.

“Reek! Come here!” she calls out all of a sudden, and the person that follows her orders steps outside the kennels into the light.

Sansa barely even recognizes him, but she does. Underneath it all, underneath all that he’s been put through, whatever it was, it’s still Theon Greyjoy standing before them.

Or that’s who he used to be.

 

\---

 

“So I take it you’ve met my pet,” Ramsay says.

“Yes, Myranda was so kind as to show me.”

“She shouldn’t have done that without my permission.”

“Are you going to punish her now? Like you punished Theon?”

“It’s _Reek_ now, my Lady. He’s no longer the man that murdered your two brothers.”

 _He’s barely even a man anymore,_ she thinks.

Sansa fiddles absently with her hands. Yes, Theon has betrayed her family and killed two of her family members in cold blood.

_But so did the Boltons._

“Wat did you do to him?” she asks, looking up at him.

“I punished him,” Ramsay replies slowly.

Sansa nods, taking a deep breath. “I want you to tell me everything you did to him.”

Ramsay answers with a wide dimpled smile.

 

\---

 

“Lady Walda,” Sansa’s surprised to find her in these quarters of Winterfell.

“Lady Sansa,” Walda says, putting down her embroidery and getting off of her chair. “If you came here to be alone, I shall leave.”

“No, please,” Sansa says quickly, insisting on the pregnant woman to sit back down. “I would really appreciate the company.”

Walda smiles at her, showing her the embroidery she’s working on. “I’m making this for my son.”

Sansa studies the Bolton sigil. “It looks really good, you’re very talented.”

Walda gleams, and Sansa does too, until she fully realizes what she’s just heard.

“A son you say?”

“Yes, well, the measter seems convinced it will be a boy.”

“That’s great,” she says, but her heart fills with concern.

“How do you find your stay here?” Walda asks her.

“I enjoy it very much, thank you for asking.”

“And Ramsay? Has he treated you with kindness?”

“I couldn’t ask for a more appropriate man to be married to,” she lies smoothly.

Walda can’t seem to tell, her attention shifting back to the task at hand. “We’ll have to talk again soon,” Sansa tells her most genuinely. “We must,” Walda responds, excited.

Sansa then leans forward to place a kiss on the other woman’s hair. “Make sure you’re never alone with Ramsay until your son is born,” she whispers, before she turns and leaves.

 

\---

 

They are to be wed in the Godswood of Winterfell.

Sansa is pacing around in her chamber, her thick white gown clinging to her skin and for a moment it feels like she can’t breathe.

She pulls herself together however, sits down and reminds herself why she is here in the first place.

_Mother. Father. Robb. Arya. Brann. Rickon. Jon._

She says their names over and over again in her head, like a mantra and it keeps her grounded and focused. It’s for them. It’s all for them.

_Sansa Stark._

She briefly thinks about her own name. Tonight will be the last time she’ll bear the Stark name.

As she walks through the woods, down the path leading to her betrothed and their guests, Sansa breathes in the cold wind. She smells the crisp cool night air and fills her lungs with it.

She wonders how many times her father has come here to pray as she stands before Ramsay. Her eyes glaze over and she feels perfectly numb as she speaks the words.

_“I take this man.”_

 

\---

 

Sansa steps out of her dress and rubs scented oils into her fair skin. Then she waits for him on their bed, with her naked back turned towards the door, white furs around her shoulders.

She bites her lip when she hears her husband approach, and when he politely knocks on the door she calls for him to enter.

His eyes are wide as he takes in her naked form, her porcelain skin accentuated by the candlelight.

“Are you going to join me, dear husband?”

“Only if you wish me to, sweet wife.”

“I do.”

 

\---

 

“I’ve never tasted a proper lady before,” he says. And Sansa isn’t sure what he means at first, her first instinct being that he’s going to do something horrible to her.

What he does however is in her eyes far worse. It would be easier to hate him if he would hurt her.

But instead he kisses his way up her legs, his mouth a foreign feeling on her pale skin. And when he licks in between her thighs, Sansa has to fist her hands in the furs on the bed, because it’s by far the greatest thing she’s ever experienced.

Perhaps even better than lemon cakes.

He laps at her like a man starving, mouthing and sucking at her cunt. He makes her tremble and whimper and beg, until she shakes violently underneath him and he holds her hips down with strong forceful hands.

He stares at her with those cold blue eyes as he works his slick lips over her cunt. Keeps going until she’s impossibly wet and swollen, crying out in ecstasy.

Sansa’s flushed from her cheeks down to her neck and chest. She desperately wants more of what he’s just promised her, curious as to what heights he can take her next.

She sits up, unashamed of her nakedness as she gently pushes his hands away from his breeches to help him undress. He lets her.

When she’s done he caresses her face and Sansa leans forward to plant a loving kiss on his hipbone, and he inhales sharply before telling her to lay back.

Sansa wonders how skin that pale could radiate such heat, how someone who’s soul is so rotten can embrace her like that. And how hands that are stained with blood can make her feel so _damn_ good.

She braces herself when he pushes inside her, her back arching off the bed. It doesn’t hurt as much as she’s heard in the scary stories growing up.

It’s a tight fit, sure, but she’s so wet her body naturally opens up to him. Her eyes flutter closed on their own as she takes in the feeling of being so full, being taken, losing her virtue.

She’s still bleeding, she knows she must be. _He wants her to bleed._

Ramsay grabs her by the chin and forces her to look at him. Sansa does, letting out a soft little whimper when he starts moving inside her.

“You’re mine now, you hear me. _Mine_.”

Sansa nods; she has already accepted her fate a long time ago.

When he kisses her again, it feels oddly more intimate, with their bodies completely aligned like that. Every part of their skin is touching and Sansa starts to lose track of where she begins and he ends.

She doesn’t expect him to flip them over, have her on top and she squeals in surprise. Ramsay laughs, low and hoarse and it makes her tummy tingle. She’s nervous at first, unsure of where to put her hands.

“Like this,” he says, guiding her hips up and down and it feels _so fucking good_ , she thinks she might die from it.

Sansa dares to let her hands wander over him, feeling the muscles move underneath her fingers. She feels his heartbeat underneath her palm and wonders what it would be like to claw his chest open, to reach inside. To taste his blood.

He sits up and kisses her, bites at her lips until they’re swollen.

 _“R-Ramsay,”_ she tries to moan his name as he hits a particularly good spot inside her that makes her knees weak. And it sounds right in her ears.

He pulls at her main of hair, sinks his teeth into her neck as she sinks down onto him once again.

She’s almost crying when she comes again, this time pulsing around his cock, trying to pull him deeper inside her.

He comes quickly after, groaning her name in a way that makes her flush in embarrassment and arousal. And she wants him to say it like that again.

Afterwards he lays there with her, and puts his mouth on various parts of her body, enjoying the sight of her skin blossoming red.

 

\---

 

The next morning, when Ramsay leaves after she assures him she has everything she needs, Sansa gets dressed and makes herself presentable for the day.

She’s just brushing out her hair when there’s a knock at the door.

“Come in.”

Myranda steps into the room, and starts to do her usual chores. She appears to be biting the inside of her cheek, as if to keep herself in line.

“He’ll grow tired of you,” she says then, like a matter of fact, while changing their ruined and blood stained sheets.

“Will he now?” Sansa smiles sweetly.

The look Myranda gives her almost matches Ramsay when he gets angry, and Sansa beams because she knows how to play them both.

 

\---

 

It only takes a few weeks for Sansa to convince him to kill his mistress.

The harsh sounds of the woman’s screams and the tearing of flesh make Sansa’s stomach turn, but when Ramsay puts his bloodied hands on her she accepts it. She lets him fuck her against a tree as she watches blood run down the stream opposite of them.

And a week later there’s an addition to his hounds, the name of the poor creature all too familiar.

 

\---

 

It takes her longer to get him to murder his own father.

When Roose Bolton stills in Ramsay’s hug, Sansa is right there behind him to shove her own knife into the man’s back. “The Starks send their regards,” she whispers into his ear before he falls to the ground. And she makes sure that her face is the last thing he sees as the light in his eyes vanishes.

Ramsay’s hands are trembling when he cleans his knife, his father’s blood tainting his blade. But Sansa holds him close to her, kisses him and thanks him.

Afterwards she throws up and cries in her chamber.

 

\---

 

Curling up next to her husband, Sansa is content, sated through and through. He’s made her come on his fingers and mouth twice before taking her. And now he is nuzzling at the back of her neck, his chest up against her back and his hand splayed possessively over her stomach.

“It shouldn’t be long now,” he tells her.

She’ll be pregnant with his child soon.

“Our son will be the heir to Winterfell and the Dreadfort and Warden of the North someday.”

Sansa places her own hand over his, still stroking at her belly. She chooses her next words very carefully.

“I’m scared.”

She looks up at his face as he frowns down at her. “He’ll be important, and powerful. I have enemies in the South, _the Lannisters_ , they’ll want to hurt him.”

Ramsay kisses her softly, a sweet peck to reassure her. “I’ll kill them all,” he whispers against her lips.

“I’ll hunt them down myself if I have to. I’ll display their maimed and flayed corpses on the walls of Winterfell, let them rot there.”

She knows these words to be true, she doesn’t have any doubt that he will make due on this promise. He’ll even take joy in it, and it _should_ frighten her.

Sansa turns in his arms, brushing away the loose curls from his forehead as she smiles up at him.

It _should_ frighten her.

“I’d like that very much,” she says instead and he returns her smile with a toothy grin before diving in for another kiss.

 

\---

 

Meeting Jon on the field is one of the hardest things she’s ever had to endure.

Seeing him after all this time, nothing more than relief and at the same time concern in his eyes as he commands Ramsay to set her free, it hurts her very core.

“Why don’t you ask my wife what she wants,” Ramsay replies calmly, gesturing to her at his side.

Sansa raises her head once more, not a little girl, but a woman wed, and the rightful heiress to Winterfell.

“I remain loyal to my lord husband. Bend the knee and give up your army and we’ll allow you to live.”

This is the only way, she thinks. She tries to convey it in her eyes, but Jon doesn’t seem to grasp it.

_Please. Jon. Please._

“You heard Lady Bolton, surrender your armies and swear loyalty to me.”

 _“Sansa?”_ Jon asks, his voice a shaky whisper. He doesn’t understand.

She can’t answer him, can’t say no more and Jon regains his stoic composure and focuses his attention back to Ramsay.

“There’ll be a battle tomorrow, Lord Bolton.”

And just like that, Sansa realizes Jon has sealed his own fate. And there’s nothing she can do about it.

 

\---

 

Sansa has no idea about Rickon. Her husband had left that particular detail out. And now it is too late; she knows now _why_ Ramsay had specifically asked her to wait for him in the castle.

She watches helplessly as Ramsay’s twisted game plays out. He lets Rickon go, makes him run for his life, the promise of reuniting with Jon all that drives the poor boy.

Before he’s shot with Ramsay’s arrow.

Sansa cries for her two brothers, as she knows she’s also about to lose Jon. Her half brother who came here to rescue her, but has fallen victim to Ramsay’s clever trap.

There’s nothing she can do but watch, as Ramsay’s troops surround them. Jon is somewhere, swallowed down in the crowd and he’s as good as dead.

Then something strange happens, she doesn’t fully understand, but somehow the line of shields holding Jon’s men breaks.

Sansa sees a rider on a horse return, fleeing back towards Winterfell. It’s distinctively her husband.

The door to her chambers is swung open and Sansa jumps turning to the soldier in her doorway.

“The Umbers have betrayed us,” he says out of breath. “Lord Bolton has returned.”

 _The North remembers,_ flashes through her head.

He leaves and Sansa doesn’t have to think twice, instinct and rage and grief take over as she grabs a sharp knife from the dinner table. This might be her only chance.

 

\---

 

“Sansa, come with me -” Ramsay stops, his eyes sharp and calculating as he sees her tear stained face. “What?”

“You murdered Rickon,” she grits out. “And you almost killed Jon.”

“Yes. They were a threat.”

“Rickon was just a boy,” she says in disbelief, clutching the knife in her hand and his eyes rest on it.

Ramsay chuckles, walking slowly towards her. “What are you going to do with that, Sansa? Kill me?”

She shakes, grasping the knife tighter in her fist.

“You don’t have to do that,” he says. He’s so close now, she could do it if she wanted to. “I’m your husband and you’re my wife.”

Her bottom lip trembles and she lashes out too late, he takes her wrist and twists it sharply. “Should’ve done it a long time ago, killed me in our bed, could’ve saved your brother.”

He taunts and laughs and there’s a sharp pain in her wrist and a loud crack as he breaks her bones. Sansa cries and screams, struggling against him, the knife falling to the ground before Ramsay shoves it backwards with his foot.

The knife’s out of reach and he has her in his grasp and Sansa trashes like a caged beast. Then his hands are at her neck, choking the life out of her, and she tugs at his fingers, scratches at his face, doing anything she can to stay alive just a moment longer.

Her sight falters first, her eyes keep closing on their own accord and she can’t breathe.

She can’t win.

She thinks she has already died when he lets her go, mouthfuls of air fill her lungs at once and her vision returns so quickly it makes her head hurt.

Sansa coughs, barely able to stand on her legs when Ramsay falls to his knees before her.

Theon is standing behind him with Sansa’s knife clutched in his hand.

Ramsay sags even further onto the stone floor, falls on his injured back as bloods seeps out. Before she even realizes it Sansa’s on top of him. He reaches for his own blade that’s attached to his belt but she takes it out first.

Theon must’ve stabbed him multiple times because Ramsay can’t seem to move, can’t do anything but stare up at her with a blood stained grin on his face. “My beautiful wife,” he croaks. She holds the knife up above him with her left uninjured hand and it’s shaking so bad she’s scared she’ll drop it again.

“Oh, Sansa…” he manages to whisper before he starts choking on his own blood. He tries so say something again, and Sansa leans forward so she can hear it, over the gulping sounds his throat makes. “I’ll always be part of you-”

She stabs him in the chest.

The tears start coming again.

She keeps stabbing him, over and over again, driving his own blade into his flesh, long after he’s already dead.

Her fingers are sticky with crimson and the smell of it assaults all of her senses.

All sounds from outside the room seem to disappear, there’s only her sobs as she pierces his skin and Theon whimpering in the corner with his head buried in his hands.

That’s how Jon finds them. He drags her off of her husband’s corpse and after that she can’t even look, has to hide her face into Jon’s shoulder.

He pries the blade out of her hand, and holds her as she lets it all out.

“It’s alright, Sansa. He’s dead. _He’s dead_.”

He keeps repeating it, but sadly doesn’t know that those words won’t reassure her.

 

\---

 

“I did what I did to survive,” she tells him. Jon looks up at her and his left eye is bruised and swollen.

“I know,” he simply says.

Another silence falls between them and Sansa wishes he’d just ask whatever it is that he wants to ask.

“Did you want to kill him?” he asks. And it sounds so strange to her ears. It’s a simple question, really, but she’s not sure what he expects her to say to that.

“No.” It’s the most honest reply she can give him right now.

“Did you love him?”

And that’s even harder to answer. Or perhaps she thinks it should be.

“No.”

And that’s also the truth. For all she felt for Ramsay Bolton, love wasn’t the word for it.

You don’t love someone like him. You tolerate, and you fear, and sometimes you want and desire, but there’s never any real affection behind it. _There can’t be._

“He killed Rickon,” Sansa whispers, quick and harsh.

“I know,” Jon responds solemnly. “That’s not what I asked.”

“It doesn’t matter now, he’s dead.”

Jon doesn’t ask any further after that. They just sit together in silence, until Sansa leaves to rest.

She lays down on her bed and closes her eyes, willing her mind to be at peace.

When all she can think about is the life growing inside her as she gently caresses her stomach.

 

_Nature’s first green is gold,_

_Her hardest hue to hold._

_Her early leaf’s a flower;_

_But only so an hour._

_Then leaf subsides to leaf._

_So Eden sank to grief,_

_So dawn goes down to day._

_Nothing gold can stay._

_-          Robert Frost_


End file.
